Unmarked Prices, Argh!

Its just lazyness. Why wouldnt you price the stuff you are selling?

 

I guess I'm just spoiled with Charleston Beer Exchange. They know me well enough, to lead me to things that are in my price range, that are still top notch. Even then, they have everything priced. You'd think with them being in the snake pit of tourism, their prices would be higher, but I've found that they are on par with everywhere else in my area, sometimes cheaper.

 

I encounter the same thing. You just need to ask the cashier to check the price for you. Most of them are nice about this. It would be better if prices were on everything. I too have experienced sticker shock at the register.

 

Busy-ness ?

 

That is the problem that I had with the place in Long Beach, that I mentioned above. They were cool and friendly and even the closest beer store that stocked on this level, but I rarely went there mainly because of the fact that nothing had prices on it. When I did stop there, it was only if I knew that a certain release that I was interested in, should have been out, but none of the other shops that I frequented had it. Then I would hit this store on my way home just to see if they happened to have it; knowing that I was ready to buy that specific beer as long as the price was reasonably close. Not that anything that I ever got there was priced out of line, but I just don't have the price points of every single brewery release around the world, stored in my head. Using bombers as an example, great beers (both domestic or imported) could come in bomber bottles priced anywhere from $5 to $30. I can't just spend hours in a store walking isles and coolers of beers and asking about prices on every beer that I have varying degrees of interest in, especially when those levels of interest may fluctuate depending on the cost.

I have worked retail, as I am sure that many of us have at different points in our lives. I have worked where we knew that we were pricing hundreds of units that would all be sold in a matter of hours, but we still priced them. It is too easy of a process not to price every unit. Not pricing product comes down to one of two things; 1) being too lazy or 2) an owner who is too cheap and micromanages labor and the cost of tags down to the penny. There is no real defense for a retail shop not pricing their product.

 

Like in all retail, I have simple theory on this. If this gets done repeatedly and the ff clerk either leaves his shift with a ton of bottles on/behind the counter or spends his time restocking them and doesn't get other stuff done, eventually the owner gets told/learns that there is a problem and what he needs to do to fix it.

 

Yeah it's frustrating.
But once I got a bottle of Tart of Darkness for 10 bucks, so that was cool.

 

The local place by me (only place with a decent selection of craft in town) marks all BMC but none of the craft. Why would they do this? It's like they think craft drinkers will just pay whatever the price is when they get to the counter.

 

I've been to some sketchy stores in some sketchy places, but I've never been to one that didn't have prices posted on everything.

 

There's a certain* highly-regarded beer museum out in the western suburbs of Minneapolis like this and -having previously had the pleasure of fastidiously swapping-out price tags on a daily basis- I was shocked the first time I witnessed it. Floor-stacks and end caps with neither POS nor prices, single bottles of the same brand of imported beer (same Julian dates!) with mis-matched pricing... it was a nightmare (to me).

My friend laughed-it-off, saying: "DUDE! People out here have so much money they don't even look at price."

Wow, must be rough!

* EDIT to note: There are many such places nowadays.

 

This just happened to me last weekend. My usual store is very good about marking the shelves, but not so great about the refrigerated cases. Along with the rest of my cart, I picked up a bomber of CCB & De Preof's collaboration Tropical Triple out of the case on a whim. It wasn't until I checked my receipt at home that I realized it was $15.99. I was expecting $12 at the highest so while $16 isn't that much, I might have thought twice if I knew.

That being said, the store's pricing was one of the lower ones for this beer according to beer menu and it looks like an amazing beer.